STAGES OF GROWTH, 29 



and, accordingly, in almost all rivers, it attains a certain 

 size, I do not say condition, in the same extent of time. 

 This is easily accounted for. During what may be 

 termed its infancy, it requires little nourishment, and 

 this, the quantum it requires, the most barren streams can 

 afford ; whereas, to a fish of more mature growth, such 

 waters are quite inadequate to furnish it in the requisite 

 sufficiency. Accordingly, in streams of this nature, 

 trout seldom or never attain to a large size. They 

 naturally become dwarfish and ill-conditioned, obliged 

 as they are to subsist upon a measure of foodj not a 

 whit more ample than what they had the power of 

 obtaining and actually did engross, without either 

 craving or surfeit, during the first year of their 

 existence. 



In the generality of our Scottish rivers, for example 

 the Tweed and Teviot, furnishing an ample, but not 

 extraordinary supply of food, the growth and age of 

 the trout inhabiting them, may be reckoned as follows. 

 The fry, I presume, hatched in the month of April. 

 They continue growing, during the first year, as long 

 as a regular supply of ground and surface food is 

 afforded them, until the latter end, probably, of 

 October. By this period, they have acquired a length 

 of six or seven inches, and a corresponding weight 

 of from two and a half to three and a half ounces. 

 Feeding precariously during the winter, they gain no 

 additional weight, but rather the contrary, until the 

 spring months. About the latter end of March, the 

 river-flies making their appearance, they begin to feed 

 regularly, and, as a consequence, recommence growing. 

 By the time the supplies have again become stinted, 

 they have acquired an accession to their length of about 

 a couple of inches, and weigh from five up to seven 



